KATHY WYLIE WRITES: "Under the Mendocino County Board of Supes direction, the budget team has been in contact with OpenGov. OpenGov is a budget transparency module that was selected by the County three years ago and is accessible to the public from the County website. With the devastating fire in 2017, the quarterly reports were not uploaded to OpenGov for fiscal year 2017/18. The Budget Team has worked to get actuals for fiscal year 2017/18 and adopted budget for fiscal year 2018/19 uploaded to the transparency website. The OpenGov software simplifies public participation and engagement by easily and effectively sharing information and collecting feedback, while enhancing public transparency by converting raw data into charts, graphs, maps, to make complex data easy to understand. OpenGov helps transform financial, performance, and location data into simple, visual content. Anyone can drill into the details or export data to Excel to perform extra analysis or exploration. OpenGov also makes it easy to share via email, social media, or through Mendocino County’s public website.

MARK SCARAMELLA NOTES: The County’s new budget “portal” is very fancy and impressive if all you want to know is things like the County has budgeted just over $82 million for “public assistance” or is spending about $31.5 million on “roads and transportation.” But if you want to know where the money’s coming from to backfill the Sheriff’s overtime overrun which nobody seems to have any data on even though the “budget team” promised to track it monthly back in July when they first tried to zero it out and then put in a token $300k and left it alone to overrun as they please — then you’ll be looking for a long, long time. If you want to know how the cannabis program is doing budget-wise, you’ll be looking for even longer. If you want to know how much the County might save through its magical whatever-we-want-it-to be “vacancy rate,” you’ll be looking for a long time.

AND IF YOU WANT TO REALLY figure things out, you might try to track cost-drivers in each department and see how they track vis-à-vis the department budgets. Things like average jail stay, number of bookings, clearance rates for felonies — for the Sheriff’s department. Or total number of clients/contacts; or interview backlog for eligibility workers, number of child custody cases, etc. — for HHSA. Or number or road miles paved or resurfaced for Transportation. Or how about if you just want to know whether the DA is on, over or below budget through December?

IT’S NOT THERE. And there is no indication that it will ever be there. (Remember a few weeks ago when Supervisor Gjerde simply asked for a list of all departments with their budget and their actuals to date? All he had been given was a summary of a few departments where were in the red, but he was told that some other departments were in the black and it might average out. Staff replied, “Sure. We’ll get you that.” But they have not, so the budget picture — in spite of being basically halfway through the fiscal year and in spite of all their new fancy charts and graphs — is the opposite of “transparent.”)

TAKE FOR RANDOM EXAMPLE, this “social services” graph:

click to enlarge

It seems to be saying that whatever the “department of social services” is, is spending about $47 million this year compared to about $30 million in 2011-12. Is that even true? Is it doing any good? Is the giant increase helping? What good is that chart?

THE POINT? This OpenGov “portal” tells us — and the Board of Supervisors — very little of budget value; less, in fact, than before it existed because it’s taking up lots of time and money and effort to produce something useless when they should be doing ordinary nuts and bolts budget tracking and not wasting time pretending to be “transparent.”

DEPARTMENTAL BUDGET REPORTS ALSO DELAYED

CEO Carmel Angelo: “Departments continue to evolve in the completion of the Monthly Metric Dashboard reports. As this is a new request from the departments, it is requiring some additional education and development of the form to meet the desired goal of monthly reporting.”

MARK SCARAMELLA PREDICTS: Even if they ever “complete” anything like a “monthly metric dashboard,” it will provide no useful management information, just raw numbers with no context, no tracking, and no goals or objectives. Then they will call it done and pretend they’re actually doing “monthly reporting.”

AMBULANCE EXCLUSIVE OPERATING AREA PLANS DELAYED INDEFINITELY AGAIN

From the Dec. 18, 2018, CEO Report: “On October 16, 2018, the Executive Office and Health and Human Services Agency (HHSA) presented to the Board about the Local Emergency Medical Services Agency (LEMSA), various LEMSA models, and core LEMSA requirements. HHSA will be returning to the Board in early 2019 with a LEMSA update and proposed changes to the contract with Sonoma County for services through their Department of Health Services/Coastal Valleys EMS Agency (CVEMSA). The current contract with Sonoma County expires on June 30, 2019. Since the Board presentation on October 16, 2018, California’s Emergency Medical Services Authority (EMSA) has provided additional feedback and requested new information in order to approve Mendocino County’s RFP for an Exclusive Operating Area (EOA) for ambulance services. The County is working with CVEMSA and EMSA to provide this additional information with the goal of releasing the EOA RFP as early as possible in the new year.”

GUIDED WALKING TOURS - FREE TO LOCALS

The Kelley House Museum is offering LOCALS FREE guided walking tours of historic Mendocino this holiday season. It's our gift to the community for all the support the Kelley House receives during the year. Each day from Saturday, December 22, through Tuesday, January 1, guided tours begin at 11AM. Join our expert docents for a stroll past early pioneer homes, historic meeting places and buildings that make up the National Historic District -- along with lively commentary! The tour is suitable for all ages and lasts about 90 minutes. The cost for visitors is $10 and proceeds support the non-profit Kelley House Museum.

On Tuesday, Dec. 18 a Mendocino County Superior Court jury completed its deliberations late in the day Tuesday and, upon returning to the courtroom, announced it had found the defendant guilty.

Defendant Levi Lamoureux, age 30, of Laytonville, was found guilty of being a felon in unlawful possession of ammunition, a felony. While the jury found the defendant not guilty of a separate count of misdemeanor battery, it instead found the defendant guilty of the lesser included crime of misdemeanor assault.

After the jurors were thanked and excused, the defendant's matter was referred to the Adult Probation Department for a background study and sentencing recommendation. Receipt of Probation's recommendation and sentencing was calendared for January 15, 2019 at 9 o'clock in the morning in Department B of the Ukiah courthouse.

In March of this year defendant Lamoureux was convicted of being a felon in unlawful possession of a firearm, also a felony. He was placed on supervised probation back then but violated that probation by committing the new offenses. He will also be sentenced for violating his earlier probation on January 15th.

The prosecutor who presented the People's evidence to the jury was Deputy District Attorney Tom Geddes. The investigating law enforcement agency was the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office.

"The rain it raineth every day" and oh boy are we happy about it! The earth is greedily sucking it in; the creeks and drains just started running (not something we could guarantee with confidence in other years); the hills are greening so we no longer have to feed the yaks, but the steer calf still insists on his bottle; the chickens cover the fields pecking for worms and bugs, a mix of active colors beautiful against the greens and dark earth; and the two piglets now have a permanent wallow. The oak trees have gone black and white, exchanging their fluttering summer dresses for bare black arms covered with white lichen, Spanish moss swaying at the fingertips, their trunks in a thick cloak of emerald green moss and circular patches of lichen decorating the smaller trunks. Forcing oneself away from the fireplace to dress for animal feeding twice a day is a reluctant chore…hat, rain-pants, boots, raincoat and plenty of warm clothing beneath it all…but once outdoors the world is glorious - just be careful not to slip in the muck! We love the fog, the black skies, the scent of the clean earth, the wild and random wind - south right now - the gray palette from green to purple, and of course the rain pelting the windows once we've returned to the fire to doze, read, and take stock of the past year and plan for the coming one. What a difficult year it has been, not personally but certainly globally and politically, and how glad we are to see some hope of change coming. As always we wish you happy holidays and a much better new year.

Nikki and Steve

LEAVE THE ELEPHANT SEALS ALONE

Once a year, elephant seals go through a process called molting where they shed the outer layer of hair and skin. This molting process takes up to a month to fully complete. When it comes time to molt, they will haul out on land to shed their outer layer, and will not consume any food during this time. PLEASE do not bother or allow your animals to bother the Seals during this time. There was one at Noyo today and the volunteers got permission to move him back onto the beach. (He was near the parking lot.) DO NOT attempt to do this yourself. This is a natural process they go through and should be left alone. I had no idea and thought the poor thing was ill until I spoke with the people from The Marine Mammal Center. They are hoping it relocates to a different area where it will be left alone to finish the process.

(Judy Valadao)

MARKET (& FOOT) UPDATE

by Anne Fashauer, North Country Real Estate, Boonville

As it is close to the end of the year, I thought it was time to do a market update. To date, this calendar year, there have been a total of 25 sales in Anderson Valley. 15 of these were residential sales, eight were land and two were commercial/residential. Nine of the residential sales were under $500,000, one was between $500,000 and $600,000, four between $900,000 and $1,400,000 and one was over $3,000,000. Half of the land sales were under $200,000, the remainder between $200,000 and $600,000 (the last was for the largest piece of land). This is down from a total of 31 sales in 2017, with 18 residential and 13 land sales; prices were higher last year as well, with five of the residential sales under $500,000; six between $525,000 and $800,000 and seven between $900,000 and $1,800,000. Land sales last year were much better, with only one sale under $200,000, seven between $200,000 and $600,000 and four over $800,000.

All of this information is based on sales reported in Bay Area Real Estate Information Services, Inc. (BAREIS) and is not verified and is subject to change. Listings represented may not have been listed or sold by Anne Fashauer/North Country Real Estate. I can say that 44% of those sales were either listed, sold or listed and sold by North Country Real Estate.

We definitely noticed a decrease in land sales and prices with the legalization of cannabis in California. No longer were growers looking to purchase land out in the hills to hide their plants; long-time farmers were also getting out of the business and selling. Last October’s fires also caused a drop in our market activity. Interest rates have also increased, making it more difficult for some buyers to be able to qualify for a home loan.

It will be interesting to see what the new year will bring. I have been reading articles in my down time, all predicting different things. It’s safe to say that whatever happens in the larger world will eventually get to us here, but that can take a long time.

As for my foot, it’s healing nicely. I’m off of the crutches except for longer treks. I have a “shoe” that protects my foot and some stretches to do to regain movement in the affected area. It is still very tender but it is wonderful to be able to do things for myself again. I’m back to the office some as well but actually hiking on property is still a ways out.

ED NOTES

TUESDAY 3PM. A youngish man is sitting in a forlorn pile with several bundles of his stuff dangerously close to Highway 128 at the Philo end of Anderson Valley Way. It’s raining. His back is turned to the traffic. He keeps trying to pull a woolen blanket over himself and his dog. I peg him as an obvious 5150 and pull out my old guy cell phone with great big numerals to call him in as a clear danger to himself and others. I seldom use the thing but family insists. “For emergencies,” they say. Best thing about it is it never rings. Anyway, the youngish man in a baseball cap sitting in a befuddled heap with his dog represents an emergency, to himself anyway, although he’s past knowing that, I supposed. But then a minor miracle occurred, one of those random acts of kindness unkind people sport on their car bumpers. I think of the wonderful phrase, “Virtue signaling,” which ought to be in parens on those bumperstickers. This random act of kindness came in the form of a portly, gray-haired man driving a dark green, older-model Chevy. If I’d performed my random act of kindness it would have consisted solely of calling Deputy Walker to get the guy and his dog out of the rain, which is only remotely kind and probably only utilitarian. But this true Samaritan, a man named Leonard I later learned, lifted all the guy’s stuff into his car, opened the door to the passenger seat for the guy to climb in, and off they went. If Leonard did no more than scooped the sad tableau off the road he committed a true random act of kindness. Squared.

NPR Morning Edition, Dec. 18, 2018, 8am. “NPR reports where a Senate Committee documents Russia’s massive efforts to influence the 2016 election. One big project: turning people on the left against Hillary Clinton.”

FIRST OFF, there’s no left in America in any organized sense. Second, that committee is dominated by Democrats, i.e., people mourning the Great Loss to Orange Man. Third, a zillion facebook posts may or may not have swung the election to OM, but there’s no way to prove it one way or the other. The vast majority of Facebookers are people who watch cat videos. They might vote if a cat were running for president but a glance at any random Facebook page reveals them as apolitical. The NPR idea of “left” probably means Bernie Democrats who aren’t “left” in any real sense and were already opposed to Hillary because it was obvious what her election would have meant — war all over the globe, a continued free rein for Wall Street, no single payer etc. etc. The “left” defined as progressive Democrats of the Bernie type are liberals, not leftists. The most insulting statement in this particular piece of fake news, distorted, lib-lab-ish takes on the news being an NPR specialty, said the Rooskies had aimed their disinformation at Black people especially, as if Black people were sold on Hillary. At best, and I dare to generalize here, Black people were lukewarm on Hillary to the point of not turning out in any significant numbers to vote for more of the same. This whole idea that the Russians changed the outcome of the election is a pathetically transparent attempt by Democrats to turn the blame from themselves for The Great Loss.

MORE CALIFORNIA BEAVERS KILLED BY WILDLIFE SERVICES

ARCATA, Calif.—Today, wildlife advocates notified federal wildlife-killing program Wildlife Services of their plans to legally challenge the program’s beaver killing in California over its harm to endangered salmon. Wildlife Services, a program under the Department of Agriculture, killed more than 1.3 million non-invasive animals in 2017, including 956 beavers in California. The challenge aims to force the program to reconsider its lethal beaver management to recognize the crucial role beavers play in the health of endangered salmon populations.

A strong body of scientific research shows beavers benefit salmon and steelhead by building better habitat conditions, including creation ponds used by salmon and by increasing stream flow in summer months. Beavers’ role is so important that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) included beaver population restoration as a goal of the recovery plan for the Southern Oregon/Northern California coastal coho salmon. The challenge alleges Wildlife Services failed to consult with NMFS over impacts to endangered salmon from lethal beaver removal, as required by the Endangered Species Act.

“Beavers [are] nature’s engineers,” said Tom Wheeler, executive director at EPIC. “They create ponds and reconnect rivers with floodplains. Where beavers thrive, salmon do too. At a time when we are spending millions of dollars a year to improve salmon habitat, including the construct ‘beaver dam analogues,’ human-made facsimiles of beaver dams designed to help improve stream flow and create more and better salmon habitat, it is absurd that we are spending taxpayer money to kill more beavers.” said Wheeler.

The Environmental Protection Information Center is represented by Pete Frost and Andrew Hawley of the Western Environmental Law Center. Today’s notice letter starts a 60-day clock before EPIC can file its challenge in federal court to compel Wildlife Services to comply with the Endangered Species Act.

(EPIC Press Release)

BAD ODDS

Editor,

We have been sober and smoke-free almost 14 months. We were at death's door until rescue came with 30 days in Tom Allman's rest and recovery spa in Ukiah. Severe mental and physical health issues have taken away my driver’s license and we are grounded on my reservation in Albion. 50 years in/on the same spot. Stability or lack of imagination or both. I am 80 with a bad back, one good lung -- a cancer survivor — and as my father remarked about his father, "machine wearing out." So it goes.

Our mental condition shorts out with all modern technology. I gave back my cellphone. I thought it was poisoning me. And I gave away my television. I'm down to a $20 AM/FM radio.

News comes from KZWX and the AVA. Amy Goodman's usual depressed report was broken this week by our broadcast from the worldwide climate conference in Poland. Depression lifts from all over the world. Elements of the enlightened are attempting to deal with climate change. Costa Rica is totally off "poison power." Youth movements all over the globe are fighting for life. Bernie Sanders and his green new deal, which is FDR social democracy and ecology, is hopeful and sane. The odds are still against us but my grandchildren might just reach old age. I don't regret my $25 to KZWX. Thank you Amy Goodman.

You’d be hard pressed to see it at the Emerald Cup, where the pot smoke was so thick it gave me a sore throat, but the good times are not rolling for many of Northern California’s cannabis farmers.

The irony is as rich as the honey-colored extracts that have become the smokable consumer pot product of choice. Those who toiled for so long in a black market, who couldn’t talk freely on the phone, who always checked their rear-view mirrors, who went to jail, who lost their kids, are now facing extinction because of legalization.

When the timber industry declined, and the salmon fisheries collapsed, illegal cannabis revived this part of California. Generations of families depended on it. There will always be a place on the dispensary shelf for the top-notch cannabis grown by farmers in the Emerald Triangle of Trinity, Mendocino and Humboldt counties, but it is a niche product in a vast legal marketplace.

“There is mourning going on for all the people who were part of the industry who are not going to see the Promised Land,” said veteran grower Tim Blake, who founded the Emerald Cup 15 years ago to celebrate the harvest of this region’s legendary sun-grown pot. “Our typical American capitalist society is taking it over. It’s going to be a fight for every small farm and every small cultivator to find a place at the table. I’m excited, but I am torn for all the people who have come to me and said, ‘What happened?’”

What happened, of course, was Proposition 64, the 2016 initiative that passed in a landslide. Instead of being available only to medical patients, cannabis can now be bought by anyone age 21 and over. No longer targeted by the California Highway Patrol and local sheriffs, growers are suffering from plummeting cannabis prices, unaffordable licensing fees and strict environmental controls.

“I have friends who have lost their way of living,” said Dennis Hunter, 47, cofounder of CannaCraft, a wildly successful Santa Rosa company whose labels include Care By Design, AbsolutExtracts and Satori. “The sheriffs didn’t really shut down marijuana as well as code enforcement has. It’s really affected the small farmer that’s growing his crop on five acres. We’re losing that part of our industry to big ag.”

Hunter, who served six and a half years in federal prison for illegally growing cannabis, recently hired a CEO: William Silver, the former dean of Sonoma State University’s business school.

“This is a huge industry now,” Hunter said. “It attracts a lot of money and investment, so a lot of people that were there in the trenches, generations of growers that supported their families and communities, are going away. It’s inevitable.”

Over two days, about 28,000 pot enthusiasts converged at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds for the Emerald Cup.

It is a party, an industry conference, a marketplace and a vaunted county fair competition whose winners are immediately rewarded with a leap in sales. It is also a music festival; this year Willie Nelson showed up to receive a lifetime achievement award for his cannabis advocacy.

Despite the gray December skies and rain, the mood is happy and mellow (as you would expect in a place where so many are stoned).

Along the midway, tents were filled with booths where vendors sold pot flowers, live plants, vape cartridges, tinctures, gummies, chocolates, balms and salves. I tasted a non-alcoholic beverage made with hops that was the result of a partnership between CannaCraft and Lagunitas Brewing Co. Hi-Fi Hops, at $10 per bottle (once the various taxes are figured in), contains 5 mg of THC and 5 mg of CBD, and is available only in dispensaries. It had the fruity tang of an India pale ale, so I bought a few bottles for one of my pot-loving, IPA-crazy family members.

This year, some people waited as long as six hours in a line that snaked through the livestock barn in order to buy sought-after seeds, which can cost as much as $50 apiece.

I bumped into Jessica Angelo, who works for a cannabis grower in Sonoma County. “I’m in line for our genetics hunter,” she told me. “We have to find the best phenotypes to grow the best weed.”

In the permanent halls, panel discussions cover the intricacies and frustrations of licensing, barriers to medical research on cannabis, microdosing, spirituality and the science of growing.

This was the first post-legalization Emerald Cup, and Blake had to navigate the new regulations that have plagued so many growers, manufacturers and dispensaries. It seems that in all the planning for legalized adult use, no one really thought much about how big festivals like this — where millions of dollars in cash changes hands — would be regulated. (For the most part, cannabis is a cash business because of its federal status as an illegal substance.)

In the past, vendors would sell their wares only to customers who could prove they had a doctor’s recommendation, because cannabis was legal only for medical use. There appeared to be no accounting requirements other than a regular plea from former Board of Equalization chairwoman Fiona Ma to please report your sales and pay your taxes.

This year, among other changes, there were electronic registers at all points of sale, with actual receipts.

“They made the best of our regulations and came out with a pretty brilliant system,” said Lori Ajax, chief of California’s Bureau of Cannabis Regulation. We spoke in a golf cart that bumped along in the pouring rain, as she took an impromptu festival tour after her panel discussion on the status of legalization.

Blake, the Emerald Cup founder, was not quite as happy. “It was a lot of work to put on a legal event because the state wasn’t prepared for it,” he told me. “They were paranoid and afraid of us and don’t trust us. I think we spent about half a million dollars on compliance and lobbyists.”

I will give the last word here to longtime cannabis activist and native Californian Vivian McPeak, executive director of Seattle Hempfest, the world’s largest annual cannabis reform rally. Legalization, he insisted, is not the same thing as equality. Cannabis entrepreneurs still can’t use banks.

Plenty of people are still going to jail in the U.S. for violating cannabis laws. In 2017, according to the Drug Policy Alliance, 659,700 people were arrested for marijuana law violations, almost 600,000 of whom were arrested for possession only.

“We need to get the government to stop treating cannabis like it’s plutonium,” he said.

Many people I spoke to said they think the federal government may soon remove cannabis from its list of dangerous, controlled substances. They are both horrified and delighted that an establishment politician like Republican former House Speaker John Boehner is now shilling for cannabis. And that Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell pushed through a farm bill that legalized industrial hemp for the first time in decades.

“A lot of people who were laughing at us in the early days,” McPeak said, “are coughing now because they’re smoking legal cannabis.”

(Robin Abcarian is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times. Courtesy, the Los Angeles Times)

ANY SATIRIST writing a "futuristic" novel who had imagined a President Ronald Reagan during the Eisenhower years would have been accused of perpetrating a piece of crude, contemptible, adolescent anti-American wickedness when, in fact, he would have succeeded, as a prophetic sentry, where Orwell failed.— Philip Roth, 1983

NOAH’S NEW ARK

There is a real replica of Noah's ark in the Netherlands, and it could set sail for Israel soon. The giant vessel was built by Johan Huibers, following the exact specifications set out by God to Noah in the Bible.

A Little History: The Mod Style (the end) by 1967 artists and musicians like jimi hendrix adapted some of the mod stylistic elements (tailored military jackets, bold prints, etc.) but took them to a whole other dimension influenced by the psychedelic experience that was emerging--brighter, bolder, more extreme… go on mr businessman you cant dress like me

The Deep State, which Mueller represents, is in contempt of a lot of things, of the people it rules over, of their economic needs and interests, of the election choice they made in November 2016.

Everyone remembers how Sunday morning pundits repeatedly told us, there’s no way for Trump to win the nomination, and when he won the nomination they assured us that the path to election victory was up a vertical electoral wall with no handholds, that having alienated too many women and Blacks and Hispanics, having amply proven his racism and unfitness for office, it would be enlightened female, hipster, gay, college-educated voters behind Hillary that would prevail.

Didn’t happen. The pundits were wrong, Nate Silver was wrong, Robbie Mook and the Democrat brain-trust and their on-the-ground war machine, all their multi-billionaire backers, all of them got it wrong. They say that Trump is a doofus, that he doesn’t have the chops for the most difficult executive job in the country and maybe the world. But he beat the Democrats, and he did it against not only the Democrats and all the money behind them but also the Republican establishment who opposed him tooth and nail.

So, who’s the Doofus?

The Deep State isn’t this amorphous ‘blob’, it’s made up of people arranged in hierarchies in multiple organizations. OK maybe it is a blob. But it is people we’re talking about. Regardless, given the towering self-assurance of these people I guess it’s too much to ask they pull their heads out of their asses for a few minutes and look around the world.

What you see in the US you see in multiple places, in France, the UK, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Italy and even in the Elrondian care-bear utopia to the north where the good folk of Toronto first voted in Rob Ford. Remember Rob? You may remember Rob as mayor of Toronto, and his stint as being marred not least by the unstinting obstruction of the local Deep State that convinced itself that their favored candidate, the gay caucasian male and his husband and their black gayby boy should be in the mayor’s chair. Well, they did it again, the deplorables of the Province of Ontario voted in Doug Ford, Rob’s brother, as premier, the leader of the Province.

Discontent isn’t just an American phenomenon, neither is its expression via the ballot box, neither is Deep State contempt for voters expressing their choices. The Deep States in various locales have got themselves convinced, like in the US, that what they’re seeing is raw racism, bigotry most foul, fascism all a-flower. These Deep Staters don’t stop to consider that for example, in the case of Ontario (a province of 13 million) hundreds of thousands of good paying jobs fucked off to Mexico and China. As a result, a multitude of cities and towns are shadows of their former selves. And, all the while, hundreds of thousands of people, legally and otherwise, are pouring in. You see the same type of thing all over the place, all over North America and Europe. If you say the obvious, that this is a recipe for calamity, they call you names, racist, ill-informed, intolerant, un-educated, fascistic.

It would behoove ruling classes everywhere to see things for what they are and stop talking shit, stop making up stories in their heads. They talk about globalization, well, the Davos people managed to ruin enough people in western democracies that what you have is globalized unhappiness. And these movements you see in multiple countries could take the globalist example, a globalized uprising to be rid of parasitic, self-dealing elites. It’s not too late to change course, but the clock is ticking and time is short.

RESILIENCE IPA NOW AVAILABLE AT NORTH COAST BREWING COMPANY TAPROOM, RESTAURANT & BAR IN FORT BRAGG

Pints for a good cause? The North Coast Brewing Co. Taproom, Restaurant & Bar in Fort Bragg, is now serving Resilience IPA with 100 percent of sales going towards Camp Fire relief efforts.

The Sierra Nevada Resilience IPA movement has united more than 1,400 breweries across the United States, bringing the craft beer community together to support those impacted by the deadly Camp Fire wildfires. North Coast Brewing encourages those in the area to visit and enjoy a Resilience IPA to help Butte County residents rebuild their community. Are you interested in letting your readers know that Resilience IPA is now available at the North Coast Brewing Co. Taproom, Restaurant & Bar? I’m happy to connect you with Joe Seta, North Coast Brewing Visitor Services Marketing Manager, for any questions you may have. The address for the North Coast Brewing Co. Taproom, Restaurant & Bar can be found below. Looking forward to your feedback.

Friends of the Larry Spring Museum, Theatre de la Liberate are hosting Holiday Happenings this Friday night at the old Footlighters Theatre in Fort Bragg. This is a FREE event to bring together the coast community as well as raise funds for the opening of the Fort Bragg Childrens Theater Laboratory. The event will have performances, puppets, live music, Christmas carols, wine and sweets, an auction with some great items, and promises to be a fun time for all.

A personal story. 1999. Henry Kissinger spoke to a large and distinguished audience of diplomats and international civil servants at the Palais Wilson in Geneva. I had arranged to have the first question. What to ask Henry Kissinger? I had been waiting for this moment for years. Weeks of preparation to pose one question, a question that had to summarize my anger and contempt about all he stood for. “Dr. Kissinger, in your long and distinguished career, is there anything you regret, is there anything that you would have done differently?” He heard my New York accent – he also lived in the Bronx – he saw my age. For a moment I was back in the 60s, my hair longer, my voice more strident, screaming that Kissinger and Nixon are war criminals. Did he hear me then? Did he hear me in 1999?

He gave me a look of condescension. He made it known that the question was misplaced, irrelevant. He had no qualms about any of his actions. “Young man,” he growled. “If you mean Vietnam, it was the summit of my career.” He was applauded. At the end of the evening, people left the auditorium murmuring praise at his verbal dexterity and superficial, perverted wisdom. Where is the moral geography? Do I have it wrong? Iraq? Afghanistan? More of the hubris, more of the same. Am I a dinosaur trapped in a 1968 time warp like a tar pit?

For finally that is the question. Does anyone want to visit the dinosaur’s real Jurassic Park? In a world of instant and virtual news, in a world of Instagram and Twitter, does anyone want to revisit 1968 to be serious archaeologists about how it transformed a generation and a country?

In Paris, there is a Monument to the Deported of World War II behind Notre Dame along the Seine. It is rather small, designed to give the impression that the visitor is inside a concentration camp. When one leaves, one sees etched in rough stone above the exit “Pardon, mais n’oublie pas.” (Forgive, but do not forget.) As far as Vietnam is concerned, I’m not sure I can ever pardon. I am sure I can never forget. 1968 will not go away, even fifty years later.

— Daniel Warner

GALLERY BOOKSHOP EVENTS

Mendocino, California, Thursday, December 20th — Winter Solstice Candlelit Poetry Night. Poetry read around the theme of darkness. Come listen or sign up to read your own poetry. 6:30 pm to 7:30 pm at Gallery Bookshop. Open to the public. More information at 707.937.2665 or gallerybookshop.com

Saturday, January 12th — Local Authors Night featuring Carol Bensimon, Glenn Reed, Diane Semans, and Rob Davidson 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm at Gallery Bookshop. Open to the public. More information at 707.937.2665 or gallerybookshop.com

Saturday, January 19th — Author Talk with Susan Avery Stewart: Winter's Graces: The Surprising Gifts of Later Life 6:30 pm to 7:30 pm at Gallery Bookshop. Open to the public. More information at 707.937.2665 or gallerybookshop.com

NO QUIZ IN BOONVILLE THIS WEEK

But, Happy Holidays to One and All… there will be a Special Holiday Quiz at 7pm next Thursday, 27th December at Lauren’s Restaurant in Boonville…

Hope to see you there.
Cheers,
Steve / The Quiz Master

THE NUTCRACKER with the Bolshoi Ballet on the big screen this Sunday, Dec. 23

Timeless holiday classic returns to the Bolshoi stage

Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker" will open the 2018/19 Bolshoi Ballet in Cinema series at Arena Theater on Sunday, Dec. 23, at 2 p.m., with doors opening at 1:30 p.m. The legendary holiday ballet will be presented by the world-renowned Bolshoi Ballet in a new production captured live the same day direct from Moscow featuring Tchaikovsky's iconic music with choreography by Bolshoi's ballet master Yuri Grigorovich. On Christmas Eve, Marie's nutcracker doll magically transforms into a prince and together their adventure begins. "The Nutcracker" invites audiences of all ages on a magical journey, through a world of enchantment, complete with dancing snowflakes and dolls that have come to life, accompanied by Tchaikovsky's beloved score. The ballet has a runtime of 140 minutes including one intermission. The series will continue with "La Sylphide" on January 20, followed by "La Bayadere" on March 10 and conclude on May 10 with the double feature "Carmen Suite/Petrushka." All screenings will be on Sundays at 2 p.m. and each production includes behind-the-scenes programming and interviews with the cast and creative teams.

Tickets are $18 and $5 youth (18 and under), available the box office and online at www.arenatheater.org

UNBLOCK YAZ

Attention: Tom Dow- Interim KZYX GM

Dear Tom Dow,

I hope you listened to that show on Jukebox and found that I did not "bash the station" or the other bad things that you were told that I did on The Discussion, when Steve S. called me and allowed me to speak for One Minute only. I absolutely deny that I said anything negative. i only spoke about being Banned, and my History with kzyx/z, and all the great programs I did in the past, and all the years of support that I have given to our station. One minute is not much time to say very much over the air, as you know. I also asked the listeners to support me by calling the station and requesting that you un-ban my phone number from being blocked. I am once again begging you to please UNBLOCK MY TELEPHONE NUMBER so that I may call The Discussion. I am playing for a New Year's Eve event, and would love to announce that on this program. Why not? What exactly have I done to deserve such harsh treatment? I request that you please phone me and tell me what I did and how I may repair what I have done, so that we may move forward. Or, do you intend to punish me for LIFE, Mr. Tom? And, how fair or just is that, to silence me forever over OUR airwaves? that seems really radically over the top, even for kzyx/z.

Peace, Love and Justice,

DJ Sister Yasmin

LIFT YOUR EYES HEAVENWARD!

Venus Tri Aspect Dec 20-29, 2018

The Venus-Neptune-Pluto tri-aspect is about to happen. This amazing connection of the planets starts December 20 and ends on the 29th. What a wonderful aspect to have gifted to you during the holiday season which is a special time we associate with giving gifts, special times with family and spreading love! It’s almost like a star rose in the east just for you to follow, like the three kings of the Orient. For me, it will be to co-host with JoySee a celebration with four friends in the area who would otherwise be alone and on other days also be out and about with my racquetball buddies and others enjoying the season. I also plan on having some special time with JoySee on a short trip. The tri-aspect will also inspire me, I’m sure, to reflect on and write about the deep wells of creativity seeded during this time that I hope will take root and grow during the coming few months. In April when this aspect comes again, I’ll check up on what I wrote and see how the seeds have sprouted and grown into viable entities. Maybe some will grow in ways not expected. How exciting! Venus just wants us to be happy and productive.

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10 Responses to "MCT: Thursday, December 20, 2018"

George Hollister December 20, 2018 at 6:45 am

Mark Scaramella understands the basics of what a supervisor’s job should be, and it starts with the budget. A supervisors job is to set policy and provide oversight. It is impossible to do that without understanding the budget. I suspect the supervisors are not the only ones in the dark regarding the budget. Everyone else in county government is, too. But hey, it’s not our money, so don’t worry about it. Right? Besides no supervisor was ever elected in Mendocino County in the last 40 years because they knew, or asked questions about the county budget. Needless to say, we know where this story inevitably leads.

“…no supervisor was ever elected in Mendocino County in the last 40 years because they knew, or asked questions about the county budget.”
One was: John Pinches. He actually campaigned on his knowledge of the budget, carried a copy around with him, read it cover to cover, and was a leader in bringing Mendo’s budget back into balance after 2009. He was particularly good on Transportation and road budget issues. His only shortfall was in not calling for better reporting, but that’s easily forgivable. Pinches should get serious credit for his budget accomplishments. His winning opponent in the 2018 race has not shown any interest in the budget and I would be very surprised if he does.

Sorry to say this is the “status quo” that has been deployed since time immemorial — and in my lifetime has been used to cow the paying public into submission, compliance, and self-abnegation by all of the top elected administrations. The “yellow cake uranium” lie, to pick one of the most egregious abused of central government, is a great example of the flagrant moral failure of the top leadership (even Colin Powell supported that, and I would have sworn he knew better). “Mission accomplished!”

This whole thing about OpenGov being a portal into budget transparency is a bunch of baloney. Leave it to Kathy Wylie, the perennial and ineffective foreman of the county grand jury, to suggest otherwise.

Public accounting, government work, and transparency taken together are an oxymoron. Look at the recent audit at the Department of Defense — more than a trillion dollars missing due to waste, fraud, and corruption.

Mendocino County is just a micro version of the macro problem with government finance.

With giant data sets, you’ve got to be careful. OpenGov is a good place to start, but I’d want to make sure anyone does their due diligence before making conclusions that the problems with transparency have been solved.

The answer?

What we need is a data platform that gathers data sets from various county sources and lets citizens and investigators, like newspapers and grand juries, search through the open data. Within the platform, citizens and investigators must be able to track specific data sets, discuss them online, and use digital tools to interact with the data.

The City of Boston is pointing the way. They have something called Analyze Boston which the city uses as its default technology platform to publish its public data.

OpenGov Open Data, the solution Analyze Boston is built on, is built on the same open source data standard that Mendocino County should use.

Analyze Boston platform is to better fulfill the promise of open data and open government by presenting open data not just as a “passive” collection of datasets but as an “active” platform for sharing and discussing knowledge.

Check it out: “OpenGov Open Data Portal Communicate more effectively unleashes civic innovation, and unlocks economic potential with next generation of open data built with managed CKAN, the global standard in open data technology. Do more than just tell your story with raw data. Transform raw data into intuitive charts, graphs, maps, and more, to enhance transparency and improve understanding among the public and staff alike.”

Hmm.

_____________

Dear Santa,

This is my wish list for transparency in Mendocino County government finance in 2019:

1. Store and publish structured and unstructured data.

2. Create large tabular datasets to PDFs, images, graphs, and maps.

3. Introduce cloud computing by department. This is very, very important — essential — as we move forward into the future of public accounting.

When I first began studying the City of Lakeport (circa 2008), I was delighted to find the City Council’s regular agenda item called “Warrants” — lists of the checks written for paying the bills — from which I was able to glean (among many other things) the date upon which the City’s surface water treatment system kicked into high gear, after the City’s allotted groundwater extraction limit had been reached. That information was important later on in the LAFCo study of City services.

I subsequently attempted to get “checkbook” level information from the County’s Auditor-Controller but have never been privileged to see that. Lake County’s many departments and two “dependent” special districts each have their own “contract management” functions, with the Lake County Public Works department having its own highly-paid team of internal accountants, on top of the Auditor-Controller’s oversight.

I would like to see “program” spending for all the ongoing functions such as implementation of our stormwater management, general and specific planning processes, capital improvement projects (I think the state requires the county to have such a function in place annually, but go try to find a document that provides that information — the best I can find is the Airport Improvement Plan, a farcicle fantasy of expanding the existing runway to accommodate “small jets,” in a swampy basin where the airport’s septic system seeps into the surrounding undeveloped agricultural lands).

I would also like to see the sources of revenue “allocated” to the various departments, and the terms and conditions of spending obligations, since the county budget only shows in-and-out numbers with no further characterization (where is the allocation coming from, and what is it for).

In the case of our two “dependent” special districts — both of them “separate legal entities” — only a single page expenses/revenue report is supplied to the State Controller’s office. One of these districts is an “enterprise agency” — charging established “rates” for sewer and water services. The other is a ghost agency, created by state legislation but never defined locally by an approved enabling ordinance stating the district’s responsibilities, obligations, powers, and authorities — operating as a “function” of the Department of Water Resources, where the jobs of the staff are loosely defined in relatively generic county job descriptions.

The county Board of Supervisors acts as the “ex officio” board of directors of both of these “dependent” special districts, and the Board of Supervisors have authority over the budgets of both entities as components of the county budget. While the sewer and water district provides clear explanations of its projects, programs, and spending, the other (called the Watershed Protection District, with boundaries defined by LAFCo as congruent with the entire county territory, even though more than 50% of the land is federally owned and operated) has no budgetary reporting requirement whatsoever. All of its alleged activity is conducted by the local Department of Water Resources staff, with no explanation of costs incurred to fulfill its loosely defined activities.

The County Administration provides “budget unit managers” for department operations, but these bean-counters are sheltered from public view in private Admin offices, and only on rare occasions called upon to speak publicly to the Board of Supes (usually the CAO or deputy CAO speak for them).

Just show me the damn “checkbook” and I’ll ferret the rest on my own! But, no . . . . . the request yields only a form by which I can submit a written request for only specific questions, for which I guess I lack the proper lingo. (The tax collector likewise provides no revenue data showing sources of operating funds — the best I’ve been able to get is a few years worth of “Tax on Transience,” and that report was deep-sixed after the former official retired.)

Budget hearings that, in 2007, lasted 3 days, with department heads reporting at least the summary purposes of their spending, have turned into one or two hours of “public hearing” on regular Supervisors’ agendas. What a deal!

We are anticipating a major re-orientation of the County’s Administrative oversight of the annual budget, following the past year’s fantasm of “Visioning Forums” and creation of a single page of vague sentences purporting to guide the next decade’s shifting of priorities even further away from normal public services (because, for example, there is no requirement for the Sheriff’s Department to provide “patrol” services — and the elected Sheriff already announced that it would take as long as an hour and a half to “respond” to a call, and the Sheriff’s website now features an “automated” web-based system for “reporting” minor crimes).

Meanwhile the warm and cozy “courthouse” where our central government resides is filled with comfortable “ergonomic” (i.e., “expensive”) furniture and “front counter” operations that are the barriers between the public and inner workings of multiple departments. Staff members quietly come and go through specially-rigged “employee only” entrances, and department heads may or may not grudgingly respond to direct inquiries — never mind making responsible reports of illegal environmental activities, and heaven forfend you should want to see a status report on required state management requirements. Unfunded pension obligations? The perpetual whine about being unable to recruit and retain expertise, and newly threatened reductions in staff “allocations” for positions long unfilled? Our “courthouse” is now inaccessible to the public on Fridays, when allegedly the administrative and operative department staffs are busy “catching up” because of the disaster impacts of three years of “unplanned” wildfire devastation, and the need for a new “Tourism Improvement District” to help lure customers to our dismal resorts and creepy “fast food” purveyors.

The City of Clearlake, declared the “poorest” town in California, boasts the highest number of “fast food” chain outlets (I can’t bring myself to call them “restaurants”) and the county’s only WalMart. Endless City efforts to redesign the main commercial thoroughfares and — never mind, again, reduce crime — never materialize, except perhaps in the installation of new “playground” equipment in centrally-located city parks. What are these people smoking?